<3

I love the smile on people's faces when I hand them a poem with their name on it & yes of course you get to keep it.

I love the texts I get in the group chat when I send pictures of outfits I might wear; all the heart emojis like little rising clouds.

I love doing my hair in the morning and happy-screaming to the mirror when it turns out alright.

I love throwing my head back when I laugh, gasping for air like I'll never get enough.

I love mechanical pencils, the soft chk of lead when my words are too much for the page.

I love pulling my knees up to my chest and playing with my shoelaces, wondering how in the world they got so dirty & laughing at myself cause it's definitely my fault.

I love laying on my back on the floor and letting whatever music's playing surround my body like lapping waves.

I love addressing my poems to you, your hair, your smile, your confident walk down the hall. I love switching it up and no one ever knowing who.

I love when we hit a crescendo < and our voices flow < with unrestrained ease.

I love showering and taking too long singing camp songs to the empty room.

I love writing reminders to myself on the backs of my hands in blue ink and knowing I'll accidentally wash them off anyways.

I love sitting at lunch with my friends, all of us talking at once like water released from a dam, tumbling headfirst over the falls.

I love the opening chords of any Noah Kahan song.

I love poetry in smooth black pen.

I love chanting my Torah portion when I hit a spot I can do without thinking & it all flows smooth & my tutor claps her hands & shouts over the Zoom call with contagious joy.

I love Newsies and Hamilton and any musical with background claps.

I love when you and I can wink & know exactly what to do, no explanation required.

I love the hot tingly feeling you get after a day of sledding, from your toes up like a static shock, and the giddy red-cheeked excitement of it all.

I love finding folded papers in the back pockets of my jeans; forgotten letters from last week's me.

I love spending hours perfecting the last lines of a poem and submitting it with a glow in my chest.

I love the organized chaos that is a performance on stage.

I love when the sun comes out in winter and everyone's faces are wide and bright like February sticks finally bursting with buds.

I love when you nestle into me on the bus in the cold mornings and I make unhelpful suggestions as to the state of your Tetris game. We inevitably lose and I love it.

I love nougat chocolate bars & odd sweets from other countries; I love being able to try anything I want.

I love walking back to our cabins at camp and the unintentional camaraderie that comes from swinging our waterbottles (adorned with friendship bracelets, half-finished) in unison as we crunch down the gravel path.

I love jumping from the docks into the lake when it's ninety degrees and the sun sticks to your back and you long only for the relief of the darkened waves.

I love composing poems in my head as we fly down the October highway, red-gold trees rolling by like swathes of autumnal fire.

I love that first clear morning after days of rain.

I love the warm embrace of community on the holidays when we go in for services & all the food is laid out potluck style and everyone is just happy to be around for the celebration.

I love thick black typewriter font, slightly smudged.

I love stick season and mud season and that week in February where everything feels cold and pointless. I mean I don't love it while it's happening but in the far reaches of summer I long to long for the warmth again.

I love reading poetry collections and dog-earing all the poems I like and someday going back to read only those.

I love big gold hoops & mascara & when my hair falls in shining waves.

I love eating perfect steak and pretending to faint from how good it is.

I love being my bestie's personal dictionary & the one everyone turns to when they don't know what something means. I love knowing and teaching and getting to be there when someone finally learns.

I love sleepovers & times when the friendship feels just right, like a sudden click & then all the brightness in the world.

I love looking at old photos with a lemon-sweet nostalgia burning in my heart.

I love crossing off days on my calendar, the feeling of getting closer to something even if I don't know exactly what.

I love going into the dojo in the mornings and having the same conversation as always - does anyone actually have a plan? - and coming up with it together as the sun begins to shine.

I love writing to-do lists and grocery lists and lists of things I love.

I love opening YWP in the afternoons when I come home from school and reading all the new posts, like a book I get to open anew every day.

I love Vermont summers and Vermont autumns and Vermont springs and every day living in this green mountain state, feeling like it's truly mine.

I love rambly poems that are probably way too long.

I love listening to people talk in other languages, fluent like I'll never be & beautiful like honey dripping thick off a spoon.

I love blue sunsets and pink sunrises when the clouds go all wispy white.

I love I love I love I love I love too many things to ever fit into words. I love my friends & my family & my world & my life

and the loving fills me up and breaks my heart. I love more every single day

and I didn't think I could find any more to love. I love finding more.

I love showing my love. I love too many things to ever fit into words

but every time I breathe or play a song or flash a grin

to someone I don't know I feel another little <3

enter the list of things I love.